Citing reliable sources, Macenstein writes that “support training for Snow Leopard has begun” with an expected ship date of Friday August 28 looking “extremely likely” at this point. Originally Apple was expected to ship Snow Leopard towards the end of September, but for whatever reason, it’s being pushed out the door a few weeks ahead of schedule.

Also lending credence to the report is the Snow Leopard page on Apple’s UK site, which writes that the product will ship “by August 28th.”

Were all those “under the hood” improvements finalized sooner than expected, or did Apple aggressively race to finish Snow Leopard in order to preempt the planned October 22 release of Windows 7? Either way, we can’t wait to get our hands on the latest cat coming out of Cupertino.